


rassembler

by patrokla



Category: The Goldfinch (2019)
Genre: And sometimes more, M/M, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, f is for friends who do drugs together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 02:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: Boris looks around the cramped interior of the storage unit on Sixtieth Street and pronounces judgment: “Fuck, Potter. You live here?”





	rassembler

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know.
> 
> spins off from the vague canon of the movie.

Boris looks around the cramped interior of the storage unit on Sixtieth Street and pronounces judgment: “Fuck, Potter. You live here?”  
  
“Jesus, no,” Theo says, shaking his head and crouching down to find the tin with his pills in it.  
  
They were only there because they’d run out of everything on the flight back to New York, and Theo had had the strangest feeling as they disembarked that if he let Boris out of his sight to go buy drugs, or see Hobie, or _anything_, anything at all, that he wouldn’t see him again for another eight years.  
  
It’s probably paranoia, all his nerves about the painting sparking directionlessly, latching on to the first potential problem. It’s not as though Boris has shown any inclination of leaving. In fact, Theo sees as he turns around, tin in hand, Boris has sprawled out on the concrete floor, his overcoat flaring around him like Ophelia’s dress. He looks up at Theo and grins. The expression looks just like it always has, slightly manic, showing too many of his teeth. Theo has missed it.  
  
He doesn’t say that, though. It’s been implied in everything that’s happened, hasn’t it, and anyway, when he bothers to think about it he’s still slightly angry at Boris for everything that happened. (If it hadn’t happened like that, you never would have seen him again, he thinks, but then again maybe Boris would’ve come with him, would’ve - what, grown up with Theo and learned how to restore antiques with Hobie? No, that was a whole world Boris’ desperate, hungry gaze would’ve set ablaze. Not that Theo hadn’t done a decent job of destroying it himself).  
  
He hasn’t gone to see Hobie yet. He could, he knows - with news of the Goldfinch’s recovery in every paper, it’d be a rather triumphant return of the prodigal son. And yet, and yet. And yet he can’t bring himself to do it, not right now. Not when Boris is looking up at him, mouth open, tongue running across his teeth in a way that makes him feel warm and uneasy.  
  
“Hurry up,” Boris says lowly, and Theo immediately flips him off, the movement unconscious. He hates how quickly Boris can catapult him back into the feral, searching thing he’d been in Vegas, and yet, and yet. The part of him that had been relieved when everything, absolutely everything had fallen apart and Hobie had yelled at him and the gun had gone off and he’d lined up the pills on the dressertop - that part of him that’s been waiting for everything to go wrong and wronger, that part. That part is delighted.  
  
It’s just Vicodin, practically kid stuff, but that’s familiar too. Boris doesn’t complain, just takes the rolled up bill and snorts two lines, smiling slyly at Theo after he does it as though he’s gotten away with something. Theo finds himself suppressing the urge to utter something absurd and fond like, “You’re really something,” as though he’s a fossil from the 1940s, as though Boris doesn’t _know_. Of course Boris knows. He’s probably angling for that exact effect.  
  
Afterwards, Theo lies on the floor with him, obliquely reassured by the line of Boris’ body pressed against his. It’s just like when they were kids, and completely different. The weightlessness of the climate-controlled unit makes him feel almost giddy, as does the knowledge that they'd done it. Everything they’d meant to. Boris had killed some people, but it didn’t seem like the first time. He’d killed someone too, but not for the first time either. At least this death, unlike his mother’s, had a point.  
  
Boris is talking about - something, the cab driver who’d taken them here.  
  
“He didn’t like me,” he’s insisting, “some guys, they take one look at me and think oh, Russian bastard. They’re wrong though, you know?”  
  
“Oh?” Theo says, and he feels Boris’ shoulder jerk against his in spasmodic amusement.  
  
“Yes, because -“ he laughs, and Theo lets his head fall a little to the side so he can see Boris laughing at his own, still-unspoken joke. “Because, Ukrainian bastard!”  
  
Theo snorts, and the edges of Boris’ grin, the lines of his eyes go a little soft. Pleased.  
  
He opens his mouth, no clear plan for what he’s going to say in mind, but before he can decide on anything Boris pushes himself up onto his elbow and leans over and kisses him. It’s quick, but decidedly unbusinesslike - warm and wet and not quite soft, with Boris’ chapped lips. Just as he’s thinking, _I should kiss him back_, it’s over, and Boris rolls on top of him, completely shamelessly.  
  
“Very sad apartment you have here,” he mutters into Theo’s ear, and Theo debates between the indignity of trying to wriggle out from under him and slowly being pressed into the floor by his body.  
  
“Not my apartment,” he says, shifting fruitlessly underneath Boris.  
  
“No vodka,” Boris continues, as though he hadn’t said anything. “For shame, Potter. What kind of terrible host has no drinks for guests?”  
  
“What kind of guest pins the host to the floor?” Theo retorts, and he feels the edge of Boris’ smile against his cheek.  
  
“A good one,” Boris murmurs, and then he pushes himself up and away, offering a hand down to Theo before he can process the absence.  
  
“Come on,” Boris says impatiently. “We need vodka, beers, fucking cocktails. Drinks!”  
  
Theo grasps his hand and lets himself be pulled up, smiling. With both of them standing, the storage unit feels tinier than ever. The civics textbook is still lying in the corner, surrounded by the layers of newspaper Boris had wrapped around it almost a decade ago.  
  
“I’m not coming back here,” Theo announces, and Boris claps him on the shoulder, hard.  
  
“Good, Potter,” he says, pulling open the door, “Some things need to be left behind.”  
  
Theo doesn’t take a look around as he leaves. He steps out into the hallway and closes the unit up, doesn’t bother locking it. Boris grins at him, brighter than all the steady fluorescent lighting around them.

Together, they walk down the hall.


End file.
